Why We Choose to Rear-Face Our Car Seat
We bought Grace her next car seat! I can’t believe she is getting to the point where she is close to out growing her infant car seat. She is not a baby anymore!!! Nate & I choose to buy Grace a convertible car seat that can be used rear facing until Grace is 35 pounds. I was curious how old Grace will be when she weighs 35 pounds so I googled it. The site Disabled-World.com says that the average 3-year-old weighs between 30-33 pounds. So will I keep Grace rear facing until she is 3? I don’t know.
What I do know is that rear facing is the safest position for babies and toddlers. It is recommended that babies stay rear facing until they are 1 year AND 20 pounds, however the longer they stay rear facing the better. At this point Grace doesn’t know any different so why rush it? (I just want to emphasize that the current recommendation is a minimum of 1 year AND 20 pounds. It isn’t until which one ever comes first. You need to wait until your baby hits both of those milestones.)
Below is a short video that really emphasises the importance of rear facing car seats. Seeing the crash test dummies forward facing and rear facing is what really hit me. The strain that is put on a baby’s neck in a frontal crash can do horrible damage in a forward facing seat. I pray that we are never in a serious car accident, but you just don’t know. Right now Grace does very well in her rear facing seat and doesn’t seem to mind it one bit. So we’ll just keep her that way for a while longer.
(If you are reading this in an email or blog reader, you may need to click over to the site to view the video.)
Please know that I am not passing judgment on parents who choose to forward face their children after 1 year and 20 pounds. This post is simply about my explaining my choice for my family. Each family needs to make their parenting decisions based on what works best for them.
Grace is growing up so fast! We kept Claire RF for quite a while but we didn’t have a good rear-facing seat for Caleb after he was able to forward face so we just turned him around. I do wish we had been able to keep him rear longer
Very good decision, Rebekah! 🙂
Just as a reference point for you. Owen is 3 1/2 and weighs 37 pounds–he’s almost ready for a booster seat. And yes, the convertible seats say they can hold a child up to 35-40 pounds but you won’t be able to use it backwards that long—-LEGS, there has to be a place for those legs to go.
Yeah, those silly legs! 🙂 Like I said, Grace doesn’t mind it now so we’ll continue to rear face until it bothers her. I don’t have any goals of reaching age 3 or even 2. My only goal is keep doing it while it keeps working.
Did you watch the video? There are a lot of older kids in it. I didn’t pay much attention, but they probably all have legs. HAHAHA! Ahhh… I crack myself up…
We’re going to be in the market for a new carseat for Liam soon. He’s already in the highest seatbelt holes in his front facing and only an inch or so and he’ll need a new one. He grew out of his infant carseat at 7 months and it was a chico key 30(30lbs and 30inches)! Crazy!
Rebekah, Grace is just too cute!
Thanks, Rachel! Liam is pretty adorable himself! I think it is so funny how opposite our kids our! Grace is so tiny and Liam is so much bigger! I can’t believe he was out of his infant seat at 7 months! I’m curious to see how much Grace weighs at her 1 year check up, but I’m thinking she could stay in her infant seat for a little while yet!
Good post and good choice, Rebekah. We’re in the same boat as you. As long as it works, we’re going with it. For now, Bryce isn’t even close to have problems rear facing in his seat- at 17 months. When Jonathan and I sat for one minute and thought about all of the physics type stuff- it only made sense to us. Its one of those things that you can so easily do- we figured, why not? It was interesting that at Bryce’s one year appt with his pediatrician (Dr. H) I said something about turning his carseat around, and Dr. H said the latest recommendation from the American Association of Pediatrics is to rear face until 2. 2? I had no idea. I thought 1 year and 20 lbs was the latest. But not anymore. If you notice, one of the last slides of that video you showed says that. Makes sense, and until its a problem, why not? That’s all I’m saying. But I agree- to each their own- no judgment here.
Just found your blog and I’m happy to see another like minded mom. Someone did mention this in another comment, but the recommendation by AAP is now RF until your child is at least 2 years of age. This recommendation changed in April of 2009, but I didn’t hear about it until a month ago! Regardless of the recommendation of the AAP, we will likely RF our daughter as long as possible.
In the video it looks like some of the older kids have their feet kind of up on the seat. I personally moved my son forward when his legs had nowhere else to go. We were in a severe roll over accident going off road at 75 mph when he was 6 months old and he was rear facing of course, and came out without a single injury (unlike me who was in a seat belt and beaten up pretty badly, although I am fine now). I thank God for that car seat 🙂
How your car seat fits with the seats of your car also needs to be taken into consideration. Our convertible car seat turned out to not fit so well refacing with our new van:( The angle of the van seat did not allow the car seat to be at the correct level without a blanket balled up under it, which is not a good thing! After talking with the pediatrician, we decided it was safer to turn her around to front facing. (She is 18months and over 20lb).
Good point, Christina! Thank you for your input.
Our first car seat was only recommended rear facing up to 20 lbs so we had to turn our first kiddo early…before I was really ready (he fought me going in rear-facing, every time, too). Our second seat worked rear-facing to a higher weight and height limit. I had to turn him forward when we got a new car and I couldn’t actually fit in the back seat with the carseat in order to install it in the rear-facing position. And it is an Explorer. So it isn’t a small car. But my little guy was rear-facing until well past his 2nd birthday.
That is fantastic! So many people thought we were nuts for keeping our kids rear facing for as long as we did.